The Wasp Factory is a controversial novel. The Irish Times said of its publication, ‘it is a sick, sick world when the confidence and investment of an astute firm of publishers is justified by a work of unparalleled depravity’ and the Sunday Express described the book as ‘a silly, gloatingly sadistic and grisly yarn of a family of Scots lunatics.’ The Times Literary Supplement decided it was sensationalism in the face of the writer’s previous rejections: ‘the surest way to make an impact with a first novel, if not the most satisfactory, is to deal in extremes of oddity and unpleasantness.’ We have the benefit of hindsight.

In place of the Stalinist-style political control that Orwell saw as the undesirable endgame of European totalitarian socialism we see untrammelled freedom. Banks gives us a scenario in which a teenager with a tendency towards megalomania and an obsession with torturing animals roams free, unmonitored by any form of authority. We are shown what disturbed humans are capable of when nobody is watching.

Frank, the protagonist, is not a legally registered citizen (a sort of Orwellian ‘unperson’) and his father keeps him hidden from the authorities on a ‘nearly-island’ on the North Sea coast of Scotland. Frank’s dominion over the ‘island’ and its fauna is slightly ridiculous, recalling the imaginary war games many children play. But there is nothing ridiculous in his dispassionate and sadistic capacity for murder, nor in the family saga of abuse and neglect that is described in the margins of the story.

Paul Morley, in his programme article for Ben Frost’s opera (which received its premiere at Bregenz Festival this summer and gets its UK premiere in the Linbury from tonight) was keen to keep much of the plot concealed. He wrote, ‘it is best for the audience to know nothing about what is about to happen, other than they are where the action is, and one more crazed thing leads to another, to more and more change, until there is, incredibly, nowhere else to go.’ We are presented with the story of a dangerously cunning sociopath who, left to his own devices, commits barely believable transgressions of what we might sentimentally (nostalgically?) call ‘conscience’. Few in today’s national climate would accept that it is best they ‘know nothing’ and let one crazed thing lead to another.

If The Wasp Factory struck a keynote in the early eighties, Banks’s seventh novel, Complicity (1993), pursues the tune. Margaret Thatcher's government spanned the decade that separates the two books and Complicity describes a series of sadistic murders committed in retribution for the victims’ selfish exploitation of the permissiveness of the Thatcher years. Banks’s response to Thatcher’s death in April 2013, two months before his own, was to comment that while he was respectful, her ‘baleful influence on British politics remains undiminished.’ His strong feelings go some way towards explaining the tone of these two shocking novels that bookended the Thatcher decade. Thatcher’s keenness to free the British economy from state control and the stranglehold of the unions could be seen as partly responsible for the barbarity of unregulated enterprise that has proceeded at the expense of other forms of freedom. Banks certainly saw degeneration and savagery in the societal changes linked to the free market of the late 20th and early 21st centuries.

In the wake of the Cold War and in the name of democracy, the project to avert an Orwellian nightmare has failed to take responsible precautions against the proliferation of simple, unconscionable selfishness. The Wasp Factory can be read as an allegory of what happens when sociopaths are allowed to wreak unbridled dominion over a small island. Perhaps rather than (or as well as) a sensationalist novel that launched the career of a highly political writer, The Wasp Factory is a leveled caution of the Orwellian kind.

The Wasp Factory runs from 2 – 8 October 2013 in the Linbury Studio Theatre. A limited number of tickets are still available.The production is staged with support from Capital Cultural Fund Berlin and Nordic Culture Point.

Music plays a big part in the first impression of any new character in an opera. The clues to Elena, the heroine in the title of Rossini’s La donna del lago, are all there in her first song. So what does ‘Oh mattutini albori’ tell us about this Lady of the Lake?

Rossini’s opera La donna del lago is based on Sir Walter Scott’s poem The Lady of the Lake. We first encounter Elena (Ellen in the poem) as she rows a small boat across Loch Katrine from the island where she lives to the shore. As she rows she sings a lovely lilting song, ‘Oh mattutini albori!’ (‘Oh morning rays of sunshine’). Each morning she is aware another day has passed in which she has been separated from Malcolm, the man she loves who is away fighting for the Scottish Highlanders against King Giacomo V (James V).

Elena’s song is a barcarolle, so called after the easy rocking rhythm and flowing melody that is meant to suggest the gentle undulation of the waves as a boat glides along. Barcarolles are most associated with Venetian gondoliers and what they sang as they worked. You can hear this type of measured pace, rhythm and smooth melody in the well-known folk song ‘The Skye Boat Song’. Sharing associations of country and conflict with La donna del lago, ‘The Skye Boat Song’ recalls Flora MacDonald rowing the escaping Bonnie Prince Charlie over to the Isle of Skye following his defeat at the Battle of Culloden in 1746.

For Rossini’s audience, ‘Oh mattutini albori!’ does three things. First it establishes the landscape through the rocking 6/8 rhythm – early audiences would have known the convention that this style of music meant a boat song. The simplicity of the opening bars of the melody also indicates something naive, honest and rural (in this case, the Scottish Highlands).

Second, it gives the singer of the role the chance to make an impact with her first number. There is a long introduction for us to get used to the style of the music and also get some of the melody imprinted on the ear. When Elena begins to sing we can relax to listen – and also notice just how difficult the part becomes for the singer. This is music to let you know how not just who the character is, but also how good the performer is: the straightforward melodic outline is made very elaborate with decorative flourishes that must be performed effortlessly.

The third thing Rossini did was to have Elena sing offstage to begin with, as though she is on the lake and gradually coming towards us - a common device in opera. Before we see Elena, we have already decided how lovely she is from the music alone.

But there is one more thing about this aria. When Elena reaches the shore she meets Uberto, who is really Giacomo V in disguise. He has lost his hunting party, and she offers him shelter with her family in her island home for the night. As she rows them back they both sing the barcarolle tune, taking turns on the lines. In the final act of the opera, Elena has to go to the King, whose armies have now defeated the Highland rebels to which her father and her lover belong. She wants to plead for their lives. Offstage she hears that barcarolle, and thinks it is Uberto. The shared tune identifies the man she rowed across the lake at the start of the opera. But then she realizes that everyone else treats him as Giacomo V – and his true identity is revealed. So, Rossini’s simple boat song tells us the setting, introduces the character of Elena, and is an essential part of tying up the loose ends of the plot. Not bad for just one little boat song.

The production is sponsored by the Peter Moores Foundation and the Friends of Covent Garden with generous philanthropic support from Celia Blakey, Hélène and Jean Peters, Judith Portrait and Susan and John Singer. The Production Director generously supported by Hamish and Sophie Forsyth.

Rossini’s La donna del lago is something of an underperformed gem: John Fulljames’s new production, which opens on 17 May, is the first time the opera has been performed by The Royal Opera since 1985.

The opera is based on The Lady of the Lake, a poem by Sir Walter Scott, whose work has inspired more than eighty operas.

‘I’ve become fascinated by the world in which Walter Scott was writing,’ explains John. ‘I hope that, when the curtain rises on La donna del lago, you will enjoy seeing how this giant of Scottish literature has inspired The Royal Opera.'

Set in the atmospheric surroundings of the Scottish highlands, the opera explores themes of landscape, kingship and nationhood.

‘Landscape is essential for understanding this piece,' says John. 'The emotional impact of the highlands is central to the story. In the opera, landscape is personified in the character of Elena. She is the landscape, she is Scotland.’

To find out more about La donna del lago, watch the model showing, in which John discusses some of his ideas behind the design of the production. John also recently wrote an article about the appeal of Sir Walter Scott. Read the full article here.

Let us know what you think of the trailer, and if you'll be seeing the production on stage or in cinemas.

The production is sponsored by the Peter Moores Foundation and the Friends of Covent Garden with generous philanthropic support from Celia Blakey, Hélène and Jean Peters, Judith Portrait and Susan and John Singer. The Production Director generously supported by Hamish and Sophie Forsyth.

Walter Scott's work was the inspiration for more than eighty operas, most written in the first half of the 19th century. The first of these was Rossini's La donna del lago, which I will direct in a new Royal Opera production this spring. Opera was a key medium for the spread of Scott’s popularity through Europe and it is interesting to think about why his work was taken up so enthusiastically by operatic composers.

I believe that it’s the mix of romanticism and nationalism, often with a heady dose of the supernatural thrown in, which so inspired composers. Opera has always been concerned with building a case for what philosopher Mladen Dolar calls the 'myth of community'; either as court opera in the 18th century or as state opera later in the 19th century. Writing at a time when nations were being born, Scott offers a view of a community that had its roots in customs, value and culture. This is romantic nationalism. Scott tries to help us see who we are, by inventing who we were.

For me, Scott’s work lives on most vividly through adaptation rather than through the original prose or poetry. His work is at its most engaging and powerful to modern eyes and ears when his ideas, fantasy and invention are revealed through adaptation and biography.

We’re very excited then that our stage adaptation coincides with a season of programmes about, and adapted from the work of, the author on BBC Radio 4.

The series will include 'The Man who made Scotland', a documentary about Scott presented by James Naughtie; radio adaptations of his works, beginning with The Fair Maid of Perth; and an Open Book special to be recorded live at the Royal Opera House.

Over one hundred and eighty years on from his birth, Scott continues to inspire and I hope that, when the curtain rises on La donna del lago on 17 May, you will enjoy seeing how this giant of Scottish literature has inspired The Royal Opera.

The production is sponsored by the Peter Moores Foundation and the Friends of Covent Garden with generous philanthropic support from Celia Blakey, Hélène and Jean Peters, Judith Portrait and Susan and John Singer. The Production Director generously supported by Hamish and Sophie Forsyth.